Kurdistan’s Dangerous Vote on Independence

Iraqi Kurds celebrate at a pro-referendum rally in Erbil, Iraq, on Monday.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

The referendum on independence that Iraqi Kurds held on Monday was unwise, dangerous and very understandable.

Unwise, because it raised high and probably unachievable hopes among Kurds not only in Iraq, but also in Iran, Turkey and Syria, the countries where they live.

Dangerous because those yearnings trigger multiple alarms in one of the least stable regions on earth.

And understandable because few people have dreamed of independence for so long, at such cost and with so little success.

Even before full results were in, there was little doubt the Kurds had voted overwhelmingly for a separate state. It is hard not to sympathize with that longing, especially given the brutal suppression of Iraqi Kurds under Saddam Hussein. Since the 1991 gulf war, the five million Iraqi Kurds have created a semiautonomous Kurdistan region whose rich oil and gas resources have supported a relatively peaceful existence. Kurdish military forces, the pesh merga, have played a major role in the fight against the Islamic State.

Massoud Barzani, the president of Kurdistan, as the Kurdish region in Iraq is known, has said the vote will not lead to an immediate, unilateral declaration of independence, but to the opening of negotiations with Baghdad and consultations with neighboring states and other powers.

Yet Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Arab League and the United States, as well as the European Union and the United Nations, all tried to pre-empt the vote. Iraq has no intention of losing rich oil fields. The White House declared the referendum “provocative and destabilizing,” and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis traveled to Kurdistan last month to argue that the referendum would be a distraction from the fight against ISIS. Turkey, Iran and Syria fear that their restive Kurdish minorities will join in secessionist demands. Only Israel, with a history of close ties to Kurds and hopes for an ally against Iran, has declared support for a Kurdish state.

In any case, the vote was held. There is a new and volatile reality that cannot be denied. All sides — the Kurds, their neighbors, Washington and all the others involved — must avoid any action that could prompt violence. Then, urgent efforts must begin to channel newly fired passions into what room remains for diplomatic maneuvers. The United States, whose forces have long protected Iraqi Kurds and fought alongside the pesh merga, should be at the forefront of that search.